


Recovery

by ottermo



Series: As Prompted [10]
Category: Humans (TV)
Genre: F/M, angst without context
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 08:20:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9313265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ottermo/pseuds/ottermo
Summary: Fill #18 for 'the' Humans fanwork challenge on tumblr.Laura just wants to be sure Mattie knows what she's doing.





	

**Author's Note:**

> You might have seen this on tumblr ages ago, but I'm just moving all my fills to AO3, better late than never.
> 
> This is a kind of unfinished mess, because it was supposed to be the beginning of a longer fic. I got seriously behind on this oneshot challenge so I decided to use this for one of the fills, because I'm a slacker. That's why it's a bit weird and contextless and incomplete?? Maybe one day I'll come back to it, but until then, this is what we've got.

 

“She doesn’t want to see you.”

Her mother’s words are said kindly, but leave no room for argument. Mattie’s breath hitches in her throat as she listens, leaning as far as she dares off the bed to hear the conversation in the corridor.

“I’m sorry, Leo. But it’s her decision.”

In the silence Mattie dreams that he forces his way into the room despite what Laura’s saying, that he looks her in the eye and all her resolve crumbles. That he kisses her again, dodging the drip line, the cast and the day-old stitches. That all else fades into insignificance.

But he doesn’t. Just as she had planned, he’s as accepting of rejection as he’s wont to deal it out. 

She hears his voice, low and defeated. “Tell her I said goodbye.”

Mattie bites down hard on her lip, and tears press against the walls she’s trying to build to stop them falling, until her head is throbbing from the sheer effort of not crying. There are footsteps, leading away. Then the door opens just wide enough to let her mother through. Mattie meets her eyes, and finds them so full of empathy that it’s difficult to breathe all of a sudden. “Thank you,” she manages to say, barely more than a whisper.

Laura crosses the room and sits down on Mattie’s bed, careful not to knock her leg. She wraps her arms around her daughter, and Mattie tries to feel anchored by it, but she is drifting somewhere far away from here.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” Laura asks her, one last time.

All of Mattie’s strength is separated into sobbing breaths. If she had any left to use for speaking, she would say _yes_.

But she is fighting a howl of _no, it’s not. Anything but this._

“He said goodbye,” Laura says, stroking Mattie’s hair. “He looked awful, Mats. Almost as bad as you.” 

Mattie tries to find it funny, but the attempt to smile means relaxing her face just enough to let a couple of tears escape. She lifts a hand to wipe them away, and Laura, misconstruing the movement, pulls out of the hug. She runs a hand down Mattie’s arm, soothing. “My brave girl. It won’t always feel as horrible as this.” 

Mattie tries to believe the words, but her face crumples with the effort of it. She registers the kiss her mother presses to her forehead, more as fact than feeling. 

When told she needs to rest, she cannot muster the energy to argue. Her last thoughts, dream-like, are of dark curls matted with her own blood. Of swaying, a gait without rhythm, only something like direction. 

 


End file.
